ANTOINE VESTIER (1740-1824) Eugene Joseph Stanislas Foullon d'Ecotier (1785) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Oil on canvas (80 x 64 cm) Antoine Vestier was born in Avallon, Burgundy. Very little is known about his early years. By 1760 he had moved to Paris where he became a pupil of the miniaturist Antoine Reverand. …
Ottavio Leoni (1578-1630)
"The Cavalier Ottavio Leoni, the son of Ludovico Leoni, Padovano, was likewise known as Padovano although he was born in Rome. His father desired him to devote to painting and particularly to make portraits "alla macchia", a skill in which Ludovico was practised himself. Ottavio did so but specialized in portraits of reduced dimensions, and …
A cultivated gentleman
ANTON RAPHAEL MENGS (1728-1779) Lord Grey, 5th Earl of Stamford (c. 1760) Oil on canvas (96 x 74 cm) Dunham Massey Hall, England As it is well known, Mengs and Batoni were the undisputed master-portraitists of their time. Every aristocratic British visitor to Rome was portrayed by one or the other. Their style was …
A Welsh fop
FRANCIS COTES (1726-1770) Richard Myddleton MP (c. 1760=65) Oil on canvas (127 x 101 cm) National Museum of Wales Richard Myddelton (1726-1795) could well be considered the quintessential MP, as he did not do anything at all, mind you MPs in those days were not paid the obscene amounts of money their counterparts get …
From Rags to Riches
JEAN-MARC NATTIER (1685-1766) Empress Catherine I of Russia (1717) Oil on canvas (142 x 110 cm) The Hermitage, St. Petersburg This is a painting of no exceptional artistic merit. The fact that is here is due to its value as a historical document and to the extraordinary life of the sitter. Born in 1685 …
An English Diplomat
ANTON RAPHAEL MENGS (1728=1779) Louis de Visme (1762-67) Oil on canvas (129 x 83 cm) Christ Church College, Oxford Another example of Mengs' excellence as a portraitist. The portrait must have been painted between 1762 and 1767, the years when de Visme was in Madrid. This coincided with Mengs' stay at the Spanish capital …
The Earl of Chesterfield
WILLIAM HOARE RA (1707-1792) Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Pastel on paper (66.7 x 48.6 cm) Location unknown William Hoare is the kind of artist that deserves to be better known. Unfortunately, for him, he was the contemporary of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and Allan Ramsay. In spite of that, he enjoyed …
An Irish Gentleman
ANTON RAPHAEL MENGS (1728-1759) William Burton Conyngham Pastel on paper (65 x 48.5 cm) Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Pastel was a very popular medium among artists in the XVIII century. Mengs had made his name as a pastelist in Dresden, and the quality of his portraits in the Royal Saxon collection was much admired …
The Aristocratic Musician
JEAN-MARC NATTIER (1685-1766) Francis Greville, 8th Baron Brooke, later 1st Earl of Warwick (1741) Oil on canvas (137 x 107 cm) Private collection Jean-Marc Nattier is almost unknown to the majority of the English-speaking art lovers, This is a consequence of the narrow-minded attitude towards 18th-century French painting professed by most Anglo-American art historians …
The Noble Musician
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) John Montagu, Marquess of Monthermer (1758) Oil on canvas (96.5 x 71 cm) The Duke of Buccleuch In my previous post, The Marquess of Monthermer I mentioned that the young Lord Brudenell commissioned portraits from Batoni and Mengs. Whereas the latter chose to portray the English nobleman as a gentleman-scholar Batoni …
Old Masters 